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Chapter 11
Lauren
When I woke up on Sunday morning, I was shivering. The weather was changing, and I’d left the window open during the night. I pulled a sweater on and went into the kitchen. My mother was making pancakes. She looked up as I came into the kitchen, smiling at me. I sat down at the kitchen counter on one of the stools. She was cooking on the stove next to the counter.
“Hungry?”
“Always,” I grinned at her.
Sunday mornings were a special time for us, we were usually both at home at the same time, at least for a few hours. We would have breakfast, drink coffee and talk. My mother seemed quiet and pensive. I knew her well enough by now and I thought it might have something to do with Vic. I had not seen him during the past week, and she had not gone out much.
“Did you see Vic last night?” I asked casually.
“No, I went with Marianne to one of her salsa evenings,” my mother said, giving nothing away.
I nodded. I had gone to the movies with another friend, and I’d come back late, going straight to bed.
“Actually, I haven’t heard from Vic in over a week,” she then said.
“Oh?”
She shrugged.
“Why haven’t you called him?”
She shook her head. “He’s probably busy… or something.”
“You should call him; hear how he’s doing?”
“Not my style,” she said. My mother had always believed that women shouldn’t go chasing after men. It seemed like a very old-fashioned idea for a modern woman to have.
“But you’re thinking about him. You could just call? It doesn’t mean you’re mad about him or anything.”
She looked up and I saw that her face was drawn. There were dark circles under her eyes. For the first time, I could see that she had been taking strain. This guy was getting to her. I leaned forward.
“You’re not in high school anymore, mom! Call him, just talk to him!”
“Maybe you’re right,” she said, putting down the spatula.
She sighed. “I’m all over the place with this guy, I don’t know what I should and shouldn’t do.” I couldn’t recall the last time I’d heard her so conflicted about a man.
“What happened the last time you saw him? Did you have a fight?”
She shook her head. “It was a nice evening, we went out to dinner and afterwards, we went to his place. Had a few drinks, listened to music. He told me about his ex-wife, his kids. That sort of thing. I spent the night, it was good.”
She pushed a plate with pancakes towards me.
“I had coffee the next morning and came home, there was no weirdness, nothing.”
I mulled this over, got some syrup from the cupboard and ate a pancake.
“The thing is, it’s been a while, since Hank, you know.” My mother was not finding it easy to talk about this, but I could see she wanted to. It was as if she needed to get it off her chest.
“I liked Hank,” I said, encouragingly.
“I did too, that was just it,” she looked at me with a sad smile. “I got spooked by all his talk of the future and living together. It freaked me out. I needed time apart.”
She admitted, “But I thought he’d come back.” She gave me a frank look. “After a few weeks, I figured he’d call me and we’d talk and you know, we’d get back together again.”
